Abstract
Astronomers and cosmologists may well assume that the controversy between adherents of the steady state and the big bang theories of the Universe is a modern one. However, it has a prehistory. Of course, this prehistory is not formulated in the same terms. It goes back to ancient times when little was understood about the true nature of the stars or of the cosmos. But the underlying question is the same, which comes down to this: Did the Universe come into existence, either by spontaneous generation or creation, or has it always existed? And of course, the question that goes with this is: Will the Universe ever cease to exist, or will it go on existing forever?
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Temple, R. (2003). The Prehistory of the Steady State Theory. In: Wickramasinghe, C., Burbidge, G., Narlikar, J. (eds) Fred Hoyle’s Universe. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1605-5_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1605-5_20
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